Ethnic 'terror' in Sri Lanka
Sri Lankans terrorized over a water dispute.
Conflict spreads in the north-eastern region between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE over the closing of a sluice water gate to Sinhalese villages.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, also known as the LTTE, have been in a brutal confrontation with the government of Sri Lanka for about a month, yet on papers, the 2002 ceasefire is still intact.
The LTTE is an organization that has been labeled a terrorist organization not only in Sri Lanka, but also in Canada, the U.S. as well as the E.U.
Violence has been on the rise since the end of last year, however, the situation on the island caught media attention just recently when on July 26 a sluice water gate was closed to majority Sinhalese villages in Trincomalee and what followed was a "water war." Soon enough fighting resumed in the area, spreading into the predominantly Muslim community of Muttar and the Jaffna peninsula in the north.
The Trincomalee district is a coastal strip with farmland, which includes mostly segregated villages of Muslims, Sinhalese as well as Tamils. The government has general control over the area, but the areas where the Tamils live, is where the LTTE bears control as well -thus leading to the current confrontation between the two, but this time, over a sluice gate which has been the centre of all the fighting in the region.
In nearly a month to the conflict, hundreds of people have died and an estimated one million have been reportedly displaced.
While the government has blamed the LTTE for the current conflict, the Tigers state that the local Tamil people closed the gate in protest against governmental delay towards improvements in the water system.
Although the water blockade was lifted on Aug. 8, violence persists, leading many to think that the 'war' was really not about the water.
"The Tigers are using water as a weapon of war and denying water to the people. The government has been exercising restrain. This confrontation is now about water, but it is just another one of their attempts to bring the government into confrontation with them. They are engaged in humanitarian warfare," said the W.J.S. Karunaratne, the high commissioner of Sri Lanka to Canada.
But David Poopalapillai, spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress voiced a different opinion. He said the government was making a "big story out of this water closing," but in reality they wanted to conceal the facts.
"Just because 15,000 people are not getting water, and because they are Sinhalese, it is a big deal, but on the other hand, there are more than 50,000 Tamils from Jaffna who are living in refugee camps for the past 20 years because the army has occupied their homes. What do you say about that? Isn't that a humanitarian issue?" he asked.
Poopalapillai said the current violence began because the government moved into LTTE areas.
"LTTE didn't start anything," he said.
Poopalapillai explained the root of the problem and the context of the water situation, which he found to not really be the problem. He said the Asian Development Bank initiated a project about the water sluice gate, in which the Bank said they intended to implement a program for both the Sinhalese and the Tamils together. But things didn't work out that way, he said.
"The government took control of it and the Tamils did not get any of the program. Tamils got very angry over this, they got agitated, and so they closed the gate. The Tamil civilians closed the gate, not the LTTE. The government isn't even allowing tsunami foreign aid to the Tamils," he said.
The government has maintained that their operation is not full-scale war, but instead a brief incursion to re-open the gate in the region, in order to alleviate the suffering of nearly 15,000 farmers in the area.
"This is a limited operation, not a declaration of war on the LTTE," Karunaratne said.
The government claims that the peace process is still in place and that it remains deeply committed to the peace process.
While both sides have made no declaration of war, along with the government's statement of its ongoing commitment to the 2002 ceasefire, violence has been mounting, and Tamils, at least in Canada, feel the civil war never really stopped.
"Sri Lanka is still in a civil war. When you define civil war, all the characteristics are there in Sri Lanka. This is a country that is being ruled under emergency for the past 30 years... if there is no civil war then why don't you take the state of emergency off?" Poopalapillai said.
For Poopalapillai the question of whether the fighting will lead to a civil war does not even exist, since for him and many other Tamils all over the world, he suggested, it never came to an end since the Tamils continue to suffer from discrimination by the majority Sinhalese government.
"The government has been terrorizing the Tamil people for a very long time. The Tamils have been subjected to institutionalized terror for the last 50 years. They were forced into this armed resistance, they didn't fall from the sky, and they were created by the Sri Lankan government. There are over one million Tamils displaced in Sri Lanka, and Tamils are all over the world. If you are comfortable living in your own country, why do you get displaced and leave your country?" Poopalapillai asked.
The high commissioner said the government of Sri Lanka has recognized the presence of grievances, but questions why the LTTE uses terrorism and violence to achieve its goal rather than the negotiation table.
"The LTTE is definitely a terrorist organization, because they believe in terror in the people. For the last so many years, members of parliament, elected by the people have been disposed of. The LTTE do not tolerate dissent. They killed the prime minister of India, and assassinated the president of Sri Lanka in 1993. They are not committed to the democratic process at all," he said.
But Poopalapillai laughed at the thought of negotiating with the Sri Lankan government.
"If they wanted to really solve the problem by sitting down and talking, they could have done that way back in the 50s and way back in the 60s or 70s. And even after the armed resistance, India came to assist the Sri Lankan government and nothing happened. Every time they make an agreement, they never honour the agreement," he said.
Amnesty International representative John Argue, the councilor for Sri Lanka in Canada, has visited Sri Lanka nine times since 1984 and from his experience there he voiced a much more neutral opinion.
"I am critical of the government because you cannot be fair when you have already taken sides by labeling the other side as a terrorist," he said.
Argue said that the Tamil community has legitimate grievances both based on facts of history, which has been a history of a minority being discriminated against by the majority. Argue also said that the current experience for Tamils has been no better, when they saw their liberation organization, the LTTE , being labeled a terrorist organization in several countries.
"The feelings on the part of Tamils, to which I am sympathetic, is that some states label their liberation organization a terrorist organization and that is something appalling for them, whereas, they question the double-standard that governments that bomb churches and temples and schools, aren't terrorists? That is just completely unfair. I wouldn't label anyone as terrorist, so that I could talk with them and negotiate with them," he said.
But Argue maintained that Amnesty did not take sides on either side of the conflict, and regardless of the grievances felt by the Tamil community, the LTTE, and the government have both engaged in human rights violations.
"Amnesty is critical about both, but we are also still hopeful that without a full declaration of war, there is still the possibility of negotiation and discussion. Human rights are important on both sides, and we remain hopeful for peace."
